Six in 10 think China's incentives could lure Taiwanese: poll

2018/04/23 22:40:58

Taipei, April 23 (CNA) Most Taiwanese feel a package of 31 incentives China announced in late February to get more Taiwanese to work or invest in China could be effective, a poll has found, despite suspicions over Beijing's real motives.

The survey conducted by the Taiwan Competitiveness Forum, a unification-leaning think tank based in Taipei, found that 58.5 percent of respondents think the measures will help win the hearts and minds of Taiwanese while 16.30 percent thought they would not.

The other respondents did not know or had no opinion.

As to how respondents felt about the measures, 43.20 percent said they could support the incentives as long as they were good for Taiwan, whether or not they constituted united front tactics.

Another 25.3 percent said Taiwanese should take advantage of the 31 incentives to make inroads into China's market and create opportunities there, while 19.6 percent said they should not be supported because they were united front tactics and bore ill will toward Taiwan.

The Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) government has cast the package of incentives as being devised to "benefit China" itself by "absorbing Taiwanese talents, resources and technologies," and called them a means for achieving the goal of a political united front.

As counter the new measures, the government introduced eight strategies to "protect Taiwan," including retaining talent, preserving Taiwan's competitiveness in the global supply chain, strengthening capital markets, and reinforcing the cultural, movie and TV sectors.

Asked about the strategies, only 10.3 percent of respondents believed they could offset the attraction of China's 31 incentives to Taiwanese, while 68.5 percent did not think they could.

The survey was conducted April 14-16 via telephone interviews among randomly selected adults over the age of 20.

It collected 1,076 valid samples and had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.